Davis High School enjoyed a banner year in the speech and debate realm, with three students — including a couple of rookies — advancing to the state championships, and one still headed to a national tournament later this month.

Along the way they demonstrated a knack for persuasive argument, comedic timing and verbal skills in general, and had some fun, too.

Three students — Lindsay Brandt, Rami Rashmawi and Logan James — competed in the state championships in Valencia last month, a tournament that brought 1,000 students together for multiple rounds of speech and debate.

For Brandt, a senior headed to Carleton College in Minnesota in the fall, it was her first and only year on the DHS team.

Brandt participated in the speech portion of the tournament with a humorous interpretation of the children’s book “Clementine.” The event requires students to take a piece of literature, cut it down to a 10-minute speech and perform the speech using a variety of voices for each of the characters.

Though Brandt had never participated in speech before this year, she has done theater throughout her life, which likely gave her an edge in the performance realm.

“But I never expected to get this far,” she said.

Brandt started the year performing “Clementine” in the novice category of tournaments but moved fairly quickly to the varsity division after reaching finals in novice twice. Progressing from novice to varsity to state qualifications and then finals all in one year was quite a feat for Brandt, who expects to continue with public speaking in college.

Rashmawi and James, meanwhile, were the first Davis High team to advance to the state tournament in the parliamentary event, which requires students to be flexible and fast on their feet.

At each tournament, parliamentary teams are given a topic, told whether they will argue for or against it, and given 20 minutes to prepare.

Rashmawi had been competing in parliamentary throughout the year, but found himself without a partner in February. Thankfully, James joined the team and agreed to pair up with Rashmawi. They competed for the first time at the state qualifying tournament and did well enough to move on to the state finals.

“We work together really well,” said Rashmawi, a DHS junior. “Our dynamic is really good.”

He and James, a sophomore, plan to continue on the team next year.

Don-Wook Shin will be moving on after this year — he’s headed to UC Berkeley — but before he goes he will participate in the National Catholic Forensics League 2013 Grand National Tournament in Philadelphia over Memorial Day weekend.

Competing in the Lincoln-Douglas event, Shin is preparing for the topic, “Resolved: Just societies should never deliberately initiate war.”

“You get to prepare in advance,” Shin explained, but that preparation requires getting ready for both sides of the argument, but he will argue only one at the tournament.

Preparing for both sides, he noted, is actually helpful, as it readies him for what his debate opponent might argue either way.

It is time-consuming, though, with hours of researching, writing and practicing required.

On Wednesday last week, a couple of Davis High teammates were helping him prep in teacher Janine Widman’s classroom. This is Widman’s second full year as coach, a job she said she loves.

“It’s great… so much fun,” she said. “It’s so easy to work with such great kids. They really worked hard this year and we had a really cohesive team.”

Of course, having so many kids so capable at arguing any given point has its drawbacks — just planning last week for their end-of-year banquet required, well, much debate.

“Sometimes there’s so many opinions we can’t get anything done,” Widman laughed.

She’ll be sorry to lose her many talented seniors next year — “great leaders and great captains” — but hopes the team’s ongoing success will bring in new members.

“I am hoping it will inspire our team to return next year with more students and more events,” Widman said. “It’s a great stretching experience for everyone on the team.”

— Reach Anne Ternus-Bellamy at [email protected] or 530-747-8051. Follow her on Twitter at @ATernusBellamy

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